Viet Nam Human Rights
Women's Rights Are Human Rights
30/8/16
Today marks 21 years since
Hillary Clinton, the former US
secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate, delivered her historic Beijing speech at the
United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women.
“It is time for us to say
here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it
is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human
rights,” Clinton
said in 1995. “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference,
it is that human rights are women’s rights ... and women’s rights are human
rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak
freely, and the right to be heard.”
This speech had not only
marked Hillary Clinton to the international politics but also shaped women’s rights
in human rights. Let’s review her speech
to more understand the rights of women
“If women have a chance to
work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will
flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well. That
is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on
this planet does have a stake in the discussion that takes place here.
Over the past 25 years, I’ve
worked persistently on issues relating to women and children and families. Over
the past two and a half years, I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about the
challenges facing women in my own country and around the world. I have met new
mothers in Indonesia,
who come together regularly in their village to discuss nutrition, family
planning, and baby care. I have met working parents in Denmark, who
talk about the comfort they feel in knowing that their children can be cared
for and safe and nurtured in after-school centers. I’ve met women in South Africa,
who helped lead the struggle to end apartheid and are now helping to build
anew democracy.
I have met with the leading
women of my own hemisphere, who are working every day to promote literacy and
better health care for children in their countries. I’ve met women in India and Bangladesh, who are taking out
small loans to buy milk cows or rickshaws or thread in order to create a
livelihood for themselves and their families. I’ve met the doctors and nurses
in Belarus and Ukraine, who are trying to keep children alive
in the aftermath of Chernobyl.
The great challenge of this
gathering is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go noticed,
whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half the world’s population,
70% of the world’s poor, and 2/3 of those who are not taught to read and write.
We are the primary caretaker for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet,
much of the work we do is not valued by economists, not by historians, not by
popular culture, and not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we
sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking
meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly
lines, running companies, and running countries. Women are also dying from
diseases that should have been prevented or treated. They’re watching their
children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation.
They’re being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and
brothers. They’re being forced into prostitution. And they are being barred
from bank lending offices and banned from the ballot box.
Those of us who have the
opportunity to be here, have the responsibility to speak for those who cannot.
As an American, I want to speak for those women in my own country– women who
are raising children under minimum wage, women who can’t afford health care or
child care, women whose lives are threatened by violence, including violence in
their own homes. I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good
schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air, and clean airwaves– for older women,
some of them widows, who find that after raising their families, their skills
and life experience are not valued in the marketplace– for women who are
working all night as nurses, hotel clerks, or fast food chefs, so that they can
be at home during the day with their children– and for women everywhere, who
simply don’t have time to do everything they are called upon to do each and
every day.
Speaking to you today, I
speak for them– just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are
denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a
say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women. The
truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the
home, usually by necessity. We need to understand there is no one formula for
how women should lead our lives. That is why we must respect the choices that
each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves a chance to realize
her own God-given potential.
But we must recognize that
women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and
protected. Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are
violated. Even now, in the late20th century, the rape of women continues to be
used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large
majority of the world’s refugees. And when women are excluded from the
political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.
I believe that now, on the
eve of a new millennium, it’s time to break the silence. It’s time for us to
say here, for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss
women’s rights as separate from human rights. These abuses have continued
because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even
today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of
this gathering must be heard loudly and clearly.
It is a violation of human
rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines
broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights
when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed.
And the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no
longer be tolerated. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused
with gasoline and set on fire and burned to death because their marriage
dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when a leading
cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are
subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives. Finally, it is a
violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own
families, and that includes being forced to have abortions, or being sterilized
against their will.
If there is one message that
echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s
rights, and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all. Let us not
forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely and the right to
be heard. Let me be clear. Freedom means the right of people to assemble,
organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may
disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away
from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their
freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas
and opinions.
In my country, we recently
celebrated the 75th anniversary of women’s suffrage. It took 150 years after
the signing of our Declaration of Independence for women to win the right to
vote. It took 72 years of organized struggle before that happened, on the part
of many courageous women and men. It was one of America’s most divisive
philosophical wars. But it was a bloodless war. Suffrage was achieved without a
shot being fired.
But we’ve also been
remembered, in V-J Day observances last weekend, of the good that comes when
men and women join together to combat the forces of tyranny and to build a
better world. We have seen peace prevail inmost places for a half century. We
have avoided another World War. But we have not solved older, deeply rooted
problems that continue to diminish the potential of half the world’s population.
Now, it is the time to act on
behalf of women everywhere. If we take bold steps to better the lives of women,
we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too.
Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care. Families
rely on women for labor in the home. And, increasingly, families rely on women
for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives. As
long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the
world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last,
overworked, underpaid, and not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside
their homes, the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous
world will not be realized.
Let this conference be our,
and the world’s, call to action. Let us heed that call, so we can create a
world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and
girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has a hope of a strong
and stable future. That is the work before you. That is the work before all of
us, who have a vision of the world we want to see for our children and
our grandchildren.
The time is now. We must move
beyond rhetoric. We must move beyond recognition of problems to working
together, to have the common efforts to build that common ground we hope to
see. God’s blessing on you, your work, and all who will benefit from it.
Godspeed, and thank you very much.”
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All comments [ 10 ]
She was really right!
Women are bigger half of the world
Twenty years ago, there were no female CEOs at any of the Fortune 500 companies. Today, there are 26 of them. Out of 500.
It is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.
Now, 20 years later, has anything changed?
There might be more women in the workforce, but they are still getting paid less than men.
China has been widely criticized for forcing women to be sterilized or have abortions as part of its policy of one child per family, and there are wide reports of female infanticide by parents who want a son.
I think she spoke from the heart and she spoke with great power,
She talked so eloquently about human rights, and I thought it was very effective, because all of the women here will know that the wife of the President of the United States also thinks about these things,
In Vietnam, women are the most important part of the families and societies. Their rights are always respected and ensured in Vietnam!
Your comments